mustang84

What is og grain?

Hmm...interesting stuff. Only one Iowa dealership is biting the dust, and it's the same company that closed up their little Chevy-BPG dealership in my hometown last year. I thought I heard that Keast Chevrolet in Oakland was supposed to close, but it's not on the list and I noticed the other day at Keast Ford in Harlan that they have the old Keast Chevy sign resting on the ground behind the building. I'm guessing they will be consolidating with Keast Ford since there are a ton of GM's on the lot there now. I just realized this isn't the complete list. I'm guessing this must be the first round of closures?

It's a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3 with 10X optical zoom. It's been a really great camera so far...excellent resolution even at higher zooms.

I don't get it...I click the link to view by state and it keeps taking me back to the same page.

So that's why GM stock was so goofy today. At one point, it was at $3.11 and my eyes about popped out of my head, but it must have been a glitch related to the halted trading because it was back at normal levels shortly after.

Well, as most of your know (or maybe don't know), I've been driving around in Chevy Luminas since I was a youngin' with a learner's permit. My first car was a '90 Euro, and my current is a '94 Euro, both 4-door sedans with the 3100. I've had the '94 now for 5 years and have racked on 70,000 additional miles (bought it with 80,000 originally). I've been saving up and am finally going to replace the old jalopy, although it will still be kept in the family as a beater car back home. It has an AC leak that will cost more than the car with worth to repair, and the rust and hail damage are major chick repellents. At the Ford dealer back home, there is a 2001 Lincoln LS V8 Sport for sale that I first checked out last weekend and have been in contact with the salesman whose brother originally owned the car. His brother was the sole owner and babied the car. It had most of the common LS problems repaired under warranty (headlight condensation, rear window motor replacement, etc) and was mostly trouble-free for the last few years of ownership. 78,000 miles on the odometer. The color is sort of a silver / light bronze and it has chrome 5-spoke Lincoln wheels. Exterior has a few tiny scratches and rock chips, but they're barely noticeable unless you get in close. The interior is clean and in excellent shape, and is a lighter off-white color combination that looks much nicer than the dark gray ones. It has a 6-disc CD changer in the glove compartment, and I think it has heated leather seats. Anyway, he'll be driving through the Cedar Rapids area this weekend and is going to stop by with the car and let me take it for a test drive. He wants $8700 but I'm going to try to bargain down to $8000, paid full in cash. On KBB it goes for $8870, so we'll see if I can get him to negotiate down. Here are some pictures from last weekend.

There are at least a couple other Fortune 500 companies headquartered within the city proper along with quite a few other large companies that have a major presence within the city and Metro. Don't forget that Ford is only a short drive away in Dearborn and also has a presence in downtown Detroit. But GM is by far the largest, so it won't help things if they pull out.

I've always loved the dystopia / post-collapse type movies that are all about a main character surviving and adapting to whatever is thrown at them. Two that come to mind are The Stand and The Postman (I know the Postman had horrible reviews, but I really liked that movie anyway). I would love to see another Stand-type movie except modernized and without some of the cheesy elements in the story. Years ago there was some anonymous guy by the name of John Titor that used to post on a bulletin board claiming to be a time traveler from the year 2037. While it was all basically debunked later on, he crafted a captivating, believable story about the collapse of the US through government corruption, civil war and nuclear attack between 2007 and 2012, and the rise of smaller, independent city-states that had to basically rebuild civilization. I always thought that would make a neat movie.

No kidding! Sometimes I forget how long I've been lurking here...going on 6 years now...

Happy birthday longtooth!

None, although I'd love to have a '66 Chevelle SS (one of my top 10 favorite cars). All I've ever driven are Lumina Euros, but I hope the day comes where I can have an SS or two in my garage.

Cool, happy birthday to him! I'm at the quarter of a century mark...hard to believe it is here already! Thanks all...I had a nice lazy day and am off to go boating tomorrow!

This should have been done from the start, but it's good news nonetheless.

No, Toyota will just beg Japan for money instead. http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2009-0...otiations_N.htm Quite the management shake-up this week...40% replaced...on top of a loss that exceeded GM for the quarter. I thought this company was god's gift to the auto world?

Here's how it would go down: the Villain would be driving a big old Peterbuilt tanker truck full of fuel, speed maxed out, with 15 or so cruisers and slick tops on his tail. The Pete maneuvers through the port and a sniper takes a shot from a crane, striking the driver in the abdomen. The perp is losing consciousness as he's heading full-speed down a pier, where at the end sits a cargo boat full of Camry Hybrids fresh from Japan. Guy passes out, Pete drives head on into the ship, massive explosion ensues, Camry Hybrid parts flying everywhere, ship creaks and groans as a massive fireball separates the hulk into two, and the Hybrids begin their slow descent down to Davy's Jones' Locker.

The interesting thing about Detroit is that it went into decline far faster and earlier than many rust belt cities, so much of the historic architecture downtown has been preserved. Besides the people mover and a few new buildings here and there, it doesn't look like there was much of an attempt to "revitalize" downtown by wiping out dense historic neighborhoods and replacing them with parking lots and mediocre 70s office blocks like many other cities saw. Detroit is almost like one big preserved museum to the 20th century.

The problem isn't the purchasing, it's the servicing. A bunch of Midwesteners are going to suddenly find that they have to drive 50-60 miles to get their new GM or Chrysler car serviced under warranty. I can see Ford picking up A LOT of market share from this debacle...Ford will be the only dealership remaining in my hometown, and it is a 30-40 mile radius to any other new car dealership. Even though the Midwest may not have the population of the West or East Coast, they move plenty of high-profit domestic trucks and SUVs. I see this move hurting a lot of potential business for GM and Chrysler in the future.

Talk about another blow to the Motor City. It's unclear if they mean out to the suburbs or out of the actual metro area altogether, but I can't imagine there will be too much goodwill toward GM if this goes through. http://uk.reuters.com/article/marketsNewsU...152766120090511

Not for me, but I hope they sell well for GM's sake. I'd rather tool around in something RWD V8.

I was at the Ford lot today looking at the new Mustang, and there was a quite a bit of activity for a Sunday afternoon. Lots of people checking out Fusions and such. I didn't see nearly as much at the Toyota lot as I drove by. Couple that with all the negative comments I read for reviews of newer Camrys and Corollas, and I can't help but wonder if sentiment toward Toyota is shifting.

Tony Montana (Scarface) Frank Castle (The Punisher) Walt Kowalski (Gran Torino) Jason Bourne James Hetfield

Looks like Joe's a Whopper man, too.

That sucks, I was a big fan of Duke 3D and also had Duke in DC. I even had the level editor and made my own levels back in the day.

There ratio of douchebags to non-douchebags in the field of architecture is pretty high...

I'm glad I sold my GM shares a couple weeks ago. They were only worth 20% of what I originally paid for them, but at least I got out before being wiped out. I just hope Ford doesn't have any plans to do a reverse split.